Search This Blog

This blog does not claim to be always right. The blogger has no pretensions about being morally, politically, or ideologically correct. This blog contains random thoughts, rants, raves, hysterical protestations and sporadic thinking aloud by a person who is not out to please anyone or pander to anyone's idea of what is acceptable or ideal. Feel free to disagree, it is a free country.

But you know what is worse than someone who tries to invoke "artistic freedom" on the way Lupang Hinirang is sung? Someone who invokes it after singing a really, reaaaallllllyyyy bad rendition of their very own interpretation of the anthem.

Put another way, it's bad enough that Martin Nievera tried to pass off as valid his own interpretation of the national anthem. What is worse is that his rendition of his own interpretation sucked.

I've already said this before and I am going to say it again here and now. The people who are behind the telecast of Pacquiao's fight just need to be more responsible. It seems pretty simple actually. They should just teach whoever is tasked to sing the anthem how to sing it the right way. Period. It's something that should have been done before.

i completely agree with you. i read a comment in youtube saying that it is unfair that other artists can sing their own versions of other countries' national anthem (specifically the Star Spangled Banner) but here in the Philippines it is "forbidden". Shouldn't we be proud of this difference? it only means that our nation is well-respected and our very own Lupang Hinirang earns the same pride and honor it earned when it was first sang by our ancestors, unlike other national anthems that sound like pop songs because of the variations injected by whoever wishes to sing them.

when we sing it, we must sing it with its pristine simplicity and when we do that, we are singing it by heart.

Popular posts from this blog

Published last August 19 at the op ed section of the Manila Standard Today. We’ve been talking about women’s issues for so long in this country one would think that significant strides have already been made in terms of putting in place the necessary legal framework that would guarantee the protection of women from discrimination. Unfortunately, we are a country that likes to talk endlessly about issues and show off about how vigilant we are of certain rights and privileges. However, when push comes to shove and we are required to manifest commitment… ah, that’s another matter altogether.After much hemming and hawing, the Magna Carta for Women was finally passed by Congress and was enacted into law by the President recently. The law is supposed to be comprehensive—that’s why it is called a magna carta, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be the mother document— the charter—that spells out every woman’s right in this country that is guaranteed and protected by law. Such rights cover a wide spec…

I am angry. And I know that there are many out there who are angrier than I am for the same reason. And that reason is simple. I am sick and tired of all you guys claiming to speak for me and many Filipinos. I feel like screaming every time you mouth words about fighting for my freedom and my rights, when you obviously are just thinking about yours. You tell me that the essence of democracy is providing every citizen the right to speak his or her mind and make his or her own informed judgments, but you yourselves do not respect my silence and the choices I and many others have made. In other words, your concept of democracy is limited to having your rights and your freedoms respected, at the expense of ours.

I am utterly flabbergasted that you still do not get it: we already responded to your calls, and our response has been very clear - we chose not to heed your calls to go to…

This is my column today.Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. was at the prime of his life; barely 27 years old and just starting to build his career in human resource management. At the time of his death, he was recruitment manager of the Hotel Peninsula Manila. To say that he still had the whole world ahead of him sounds like a cliché but those among us who actually knew him, those among us who were aware of the kind of passion he had for life and for his work, people like me who had the privilege of having been consulted by him on many professional matters, know this with a certain degree of certainty.I was Victor’s professor in three major subjects when he was in college. In each one of them, he sat at the first row, which said a lot about the kind of person he was. Professors know this for a fact: Bullies don’t sit in front of the class where they cannot annoy anyone.I was his thesis adviser and he and his team spent a whole academic school year trying to break new grounds on the question of …